Apparatus and method for diagnosing electric power equipment using thermal imaging camera

Abstract

Disclosed are an apparatus and method for diagnosing electric power equipment. The apparatus includes a measuring unit including a pan / tilt module mounted on the top of a vehicle and an imaging module mounted on an upper portion of the pan / tilt module, a determination unit for determining whether electric power equipment is detected by the measuring unit, a controller for performing control to capture a thermal image of the electric power equipment using the measuring unit, and a processing unit for dividing the thermal image into an analysis target equipment region, a non-interest equipment region, and a background noise region through pattern analysis of the thermal image and diagnosing the electric power equipment as being normal or as being abnormal on the basis of temperature information included in the analysis target equipment region.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE[0001]This patent application is the U.S. National Phase under 35 U.S.C. § 371 of International Application No. PCT / KR2016 / 009585, filed on Aug. 29, 2016, which claims the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 10-2015-0122728, filed on Aug. 31, 2015, the entire contents of each are hereby incorporated by reference.TECHNICAL FIELD[0002]The present invention relates generally to an apparatus and method for diagnosing electric power equipment using a thermal imaging. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for capturing a thermal image of electric power equipment using a thermal imaging camera mounted on a vehicle and diagnosing abnormalities in the electric power equipment based on the thermal image.BACKGROUND ART[0003]With electric power equipment operated under high voltage, environmental, mechanical, thermal, and electrical deterioration is inevitable due to complex causes, thereby resulting in electrical abnormalities in the el...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0029]As described above, with the electric power equipment diagnosis apparatus and method using a thermal imaging camera, according to the present invention, it is possible to automatically diagnose electric power equipment as being normal or as being abnormal. Furthermore, it is possible to continuously perform the diagnosis even while a vehicle to which the electric power equipment diagnosis apparatus is mounted is traveling, which results in reduction of diagnosis time. Still furthermore, it is possible to improve accuracy of diagnosis on an abnormality in electric power equipment through pattern analysis.

[0030]In addition, the electric power equipment diagnosis apparatus and method using a thermal imaging camera, according to the present invention, are achieved through intensive study, research, and development of a technology of a system incorporating an algorithm capable of automatically analyzing a huge amount of data of thermal images in a short time. Therefore, with the electric power equipment diagnosis apparatus and method using a thermal imaging camera, according to the present invention, it is possible to dramatically shorten analysis time and prevent human errors by eliminating human intervention during analysis, in comparison with a conventional method in which a lot of thermal images are manually analyzed one by one by specialists. Moreover, it is possible to accurately identify abnormal electric power equipment and to automatically produce an analysis report as a result of the diagnosis.

Problems solved by technology

With electric power equipment operated under high voltage, environmental, mechanical, thermal, and electrical deterioration is inevitable due to complex causes, thereby resulting in electrical abnormalities in the electric power equipment.

For example, such electrical abnormalities cause surface cracks, erosion tracking, increased leakage current, heat, ultrasonic sound, light, and mechanical vibrations in the equipment, and when this status continues, electric breakdown occurs, finally resulting in malfunctioning of the equipment.

However, this diagnosis method has a disadvantage of taking much time for diagnosis.

Further, although some power equipment is diagnosed by using a simple diagnosis device mounted on a vehicle, there is a problem that it takes much time to diagnose electric power equipment at every single place because storing a captured image is not performed during traveling of the vehicle but performed in a stationary state of the vehicle.

Therefore, there are many cases where deteriorated points cannot be identified due to differences in the level of analytical technique of the analysts, and the analysis time is long because the images are analyzed manually one by one.

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